Projects to do

A port serving a whole region can charge shippers a lot if nobody else can handle their cargo, and a regulator must balance fairness against the port's need to invest.

Charging vehicles to enter a crowded area can cut jams and fumes, but it also raises questions of fairness, public transport and politics.

Governments can give poor households cash or goods such as grain, and each choice changes who gains, who is left out and who decides what is bought.

A district can build more clinics or pay and keep more doctors and nurses, yet empty clinics and overworked staff both waste public money.

Changing the tax on one common good ripples through prices, sales, small sellers and government revenue, and different groups feel it unequally.

A scheme can look successful simply because things were improving anyway, so a good evaluation must imagine what would have happened without it.

Migrant workers often pay a lot for poor rooms, and a city can help by subsidising rent, building rental homes or easing rules, each with trade-offs.

When a city builds a metro with a private partner, someone has to bear the risk of too few riders, and the split of that risk shapes the whole deal.

When the rupee moves against other currencies, importers, exporters and shoppers all feel it differently, and the same move can help one and hurt another.

In an airwaves auction each bidder must guess what rivals will do, and bidding too high or too low both carry a real cost.

A town can ban bags, tax them or simply nudge shoppers, and each route works through very different incentives and invites different workarounds.

A licence rule can protect customers and neighbours, yet heavy paperwork may push small shops into informality or out of business.

A city can let many operators run buses freely or give one operator a route, and the two systems differ on fares, safety, coverage and cost to the public purse.

A patient's route from clinic to hospital depends on incentives that are rarely visible, such as fees, targets and fear of blame.

A budget speech highlights some priorities, but the actual allocations may tell a slightly different story.

Competition authorities look at whether big platforms treat sellers and rivals fairly, and the remedies they choose carry their own risks.